Sunday, June 29, 2008

"Let me tell you something, son. You are not the first person in the world who hasn't had things go his way."

Eric was already uncomfortable. "I know that."

"You do?" He said, sounding somewhat surprised. "Well think about this. Think about how long you've been alive. You're going to have to live that many years again just to get where I am right now. Then, you'll probably live at least that many again before you finally check out. You have to live your whole life two more times."

"So?"

"So you so you might want to start living like your whole lives ahead of you. Not behind."

"Tomorrow's game," coach Gleason began, "is a rivalry." He paused here. His public speeches were lousy with such phrases. Most of the time they could be passed off as being for dramatic effect. But occasionally a Gleason pause would be so long, and so poorly placed, it seemed as though the sum of the English language had collected itself quickly and fled his consciousness for good."

"You can't push on a person so hard that they have to give up every single secret, she was discovering. Some things were better locked away in the heart where they could remain a hard, bitter kernel that they had become in such darkness. Glancing toward the barn where L.O. was still standing in the sunlight, his face upturned, as if he meant to blind himself, she wondered if he would become that splinter in her heart, the luck of love that turned bad. Not if she could help it, she vowed. She'd keep them close and teach them how much another person could mean in his life. He'd never want to leave her! But even as she said it, she felt the shadow behind her, against the screen door, something watching and waiting."

"She also began to write the story of her life beginning with the earthquake, because it seems after Chabot's passing that we die so suddenly, without a final reckoning, slipping quickly from memory, that without children who continue us, we cease, become as common as dirt trampled beneath the feet of travelers. She could not stand the idea, so she wrote to give evidence of their lives for that brief moment."

My Favorite Book Quotes

This blog is a list of quotes from books I have read. We have all had the experience of reading a book and coming across a sentence or paragraph that resonates. The quotes on this blog are the ones that stayed with me. I have listed the author and title along with the quote.